as just going out
when Madame C---- presented herself before me.

"Begone, madam," I said to her, "or, in my rage, I might forget the
respect due to your sex."

She threw herself, crying bitterly, on a chair, entreated me to forgive
her, assuring me that she was innocent, and that she was not present when
the knave had given the names. The landlady, coming in at that moment,
vouched for the truth of her assertion. My anger began to abate, and as I
passed near the window I saw the carriage I had ordered waiting for me
with a pair of good horses. I called for the landlord in order to pay
whatever my share of the expense might come to, but he told me that as I
had ordered nothing myself I had nothing to pay. Just at that juncture
Count Velo came in.

"I daresay, count," I said, "that you believe this woman to be my wife."

"That is a fact known to everybody in the city."

"Damnation! And you have believed such a thing, knowing that I occupy
this room alone, and seeing me leave the ball-room and the supper-table
yesterday alone, leaving her with you all!"

"Some husbands are blessed with such easy dispositions!"

"I do not think I look like one of that species, and you are not a judge
of men of honour, let us go out, and I undertake to prove it to you."

The count rushed down the stairs and out of the hotel. The miserable
C---- was choking, and I could not help pitying her; for a woman has in
her tears a weapon which through my life I have never known to resist. I
considered that if I left the hotel without paying anything, people might
laugh at my anger and suppose that I had a share in the swindle; I
requested the landlord to bring me the account, intending to pay half of
it. He went for it, but another scene awaited me. Madame C----, bathed in
tears, fell on her knees, and told me that if I abandoned her she was
lost, for she had no money and nothing to leave as security for her hotel
bill.

"What, madam! Have you not letters of exchange to the amount of six
thousand florins, or the goods bought with them?"

"The goods are no longer here; they have all been taken away, because the
letters of exchange, which you saw, and which we considered as good as
cash, only made the merchants laugh; they have sent for everything. Oh!
who could have supposed it?"

"The scoundrel! He knew it well enough, and that is why he was so anxious
to bring me here. Well, it is right that I should pay the penalty of my
own folly."